It's Live Or Nothing At Fireworks Show

July 06, 1993|By Eric Zorn.

Getting a few thoughts off my desk at the end of another long weekend:

It wasn't really sweet vindication, but it felt like it: Nearly 10 minutes into the 20-minute fireworks display in Chicago's Grant Park Saturday night, WFMT-FM, which was broadcasting the taped musical accompaniment to the explosions, suddenly went silent.

The station had lost its feed from the park at the very moment tens of thousands of listeners on nearby balconies, boats and rooftops as well as up and down the lakefront were to hear the country group Alabama singing "American Pride." I took the interruption as a sign from on high that I was right last Thursday when I wrote that taped music has no place at a classy fireworks display.

WFMT had no emergency backup plan. After an interlude of silence, the announcer at the studio threw on the station's signature Spanish classical guitar music. Then, apparently realizing the soothing noodling was not a compelling accompaniment to the fireworks, he faded it down and said something to the effect of, "Don't worry, we have American music here, too."

He then proceeded to play a comically overwrought version of "America the Beautiful" sung by operatic soprano Leontyne Price, who rolled her r's on the word "America." When she got to the word "flaw" in the line "God mend thine every flaw" she shrieked as though someone had just dropped an ice cube down her back.

The fireworks were still blooming and bursting at the end of the song, but the announcer, in the best WFMT tradition, slowly and soberly told listeners the name of the hall where the song had been performed, the orchestra, the backup chorus and the name of the conductor.

Next up, he said, a rendition of "the quintessential American Song, Irving Berlin's `God Bless America."' Then came another half-minute of silence followed by Leontyne Price singing "America the Beautiful" again. God mend thine every FLAW! indeed.

The technical glitch, which did not affect the TV broadcast on WFLD-Ch. 32, had nothing to do with whether the music from the park was live or on tape, according to people at the station. But what do they know? I still say something out there wants us to return next year to the old way-live orchestral accompaniment to the fireworks.

Thanks to all who have been sending in suggestions for new slogans for license plates in Illinois. I have forwarded all of them to the Illinois License Plate Task Force, a group of 20 legislative, business and law enforcement leaders convened by Illinois Secretary of State George Ryan to discuss the slogan and other issues.

Here are a few:

Illinois, Gamble Your Heart Away

Illinois: There Are Prettier Places

Illinois: State of Corn-fusion

Illinois: Where Oprah is Taped

Illinois: Jerks in the City, Hicks Downstate

Illinois: Land of Jordan

And by far the most frequent submission: Illinois: The `S' is Silent.

The task force met for the first time June 22 in Springfield and discussed the cost of replating every vehicle in state (now estimated at up to $27 million over five years), the one-plate-or-two? issue (law enforcement strongly favors two) and the strange price discrepancy between vanity plates with numbers and vanity plates without.

The matter of a new design and slogan will be considered in upcoming meetings, yet unscheduled. So, as ever, you may send your suggestions to me at 9450 W. Bryn Mawr Ave., Suite 650, Rosemont, 60018 or via e-mail at ericzorn@aol.com.

Post-fight analysis: Christian scholar William Craig pounded the polemic stuffings out of author Frank Zindler in their heavyweight debate recently at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington.

The set-to, "Atheism vs. Christianity: Which Way Does the Evidence Point?," attracted a crowd of nearly 8,000, most of them believers to judge from the applause heard right from the start and the overwhelming audience vote in favor of Christianity at the conclusion.

Craig, a calm but forceful speaker, had his opponent on the defensive almost from the start. Zindler failed to keep his arguments focused and fell back on dismissive, humorous mockery so often that even a late flurry of compelling points failed to reverse his fortunes.

Neither side really "lost," however. The fundamental moral and logical assumptions were so divergent and the debate never moved forward or found common ground from which to stand on and define the source of the disagreement.

In the end, the argument ends in a stalemate at the very beginning. Does the existence of the universe require an intelligent God to have made it? If so-if nothing cannot come out of nothing-then what, before that, created God?

And if not, well, then, how does anyone explain what happened during the fireworks Saturday night on WFMT?